dnd-lore/Seighell/Expanded Universe/Nihilus Creatatus/Grunt's Quarterly Reports/Entry 3.md

28/6/2026 !Entry3 28-6-26.wav

• Session opens with the party at their headquarters the morning after having just met their administrator, Roz, the ancient goblin lady, and received their “Portable Vault” access card from a head office representative. Grunt had tasked the workers that they had “hired” at the end of last session with fixing up the headquarters and replacing some of the makeshift walls/room dividers in the office.

• The party is in the meeting room with Grunt running their “morning huddle”, he gets a status report on their finances from Spastica who tells him they have 117 silver left, after they paid their franchise fees to head office.

• He consults their chief “Stratestician”, Kremit, for their current business strategy, who reports that they should “get more money”.

• Consulting Coinclinkz, head of corporate espionage, he asks for a report on any current intelligence he may have and Coinclinkz says he isn’t sure, but is looking into intelligence on artefacts that they could recover from dungeons for their company.

• Grunt suggests that they could try and find a dungeon, keep all the traps etc in place and “run” it, harvesting resources from misfortunate adventurers that come to investigate it. Another idea he has is to buy a dungeon, sneak into it and rob their own horde stored there and then write it all off on insurance. The party isn’t too sure about these ideas.

• Grunt goes over the events of the day before and suggest that they focus on wrapping up business with Ted and entice Bartemius Fowl into the forest to get his mind wiped so that they can complete the quest to get access to the magic water from Ted. Kremit pipes up that they could call their magic water product “Baldur’s Gatorade” and is met with rousing approval from the others.

• They start making plans to raid the office of the Crimson Carrion franchise located in the local inn “The Chalice”, it doesn’t appear to have guards per se, just a bouncer that keeps drunks under control. Grunt stresses that they should try not to kill anyone, he doesn’t approve of murder, being a paladin.

• They try to think of some hair brained schemes to bring Bartemius a “pot plant” or some “dirt from the forest”, thinking that if he stands on that, does it technically count as him “being in the forest” and fulfil their promise to Ted ? No that probably won’t work.

• Kremit and Coinclinkz ask Grunt about his oath and if it is to the company, instead of a deity, and Grunt confirms that this is basically the case, he swore an oath to uphold the ideals of his father’s company and he must follow the tenets of that, or lose his magical abilities.

• Kremit returns to the task at hand and says that he agrees with Spastica, they should go to the office and charm/cast sleep on Bartemius, they will have nothing to worry about.

• Grunt re-affirms that they must not kill him, if they think about it from a profit perspective, every life is like a potential customer and they don’t want to eat into their client base by killing them.

• There’s an aside where the party discusses Kremit “Frogmaxxing” and theorising on what the standards of frog beauty are.

• They end their meeting, get the cart that they were tasked with returning to Bartemius and make their way over to The Chalice, with Spastica stuck pulling the cart, despite being the smallest of the group.

• Arriving at the inn, they find Bartemius in his office, off of the main common area, enjoying industriously signing and filing paperwork with his magic quills and various documents floating around him, going in and out of filing cabinets.

• They study the inside of the inn, its the better of the town’s two accomodations, with the alternative being “The Leaky Tap” that is more of the peasant inn, where as this is more suited to merchants and people of modest means. The middle aged, female human innkeeper, Blanche, is leaning against the bar and idly cleaning glasses as it isn’t too busy during the middle of the day. Kremit, at roughly four feet tall, is barely level with the bar top standing up.

• Grunt addresses the gnome, Bartemius, as “Little man” and immediately offends him, telling him that he is little, that is a factual statement and “facts don’t care about your feelings”. Kremit peers over the desk and tells Bartemius to “Grow up”, eliciting a golf clap from him and him saying “ok ribbit, lookout we have a ribbitter over here...”

• They get down to business after these pleasantries and he asks them if they have completed their task and if they have their contract with them. Grunt asks if he has a copy of it and remembers what they were supposed to get for doing the job and Bartemius is delighted that they forgot the terms, telling them they he thinks he promised them about 20 silvers for completing the task. Kremit rummages around and finds the terms of the arrangement and that they were actually supposed to get 25 gold pieces each and Bartemius apologises profusely saying he must have been thinking of another deal, he has so many things on the go at the moment. He retrieves 100gp from his lockbox, virtually causing him physical pain to part with it; the money is all hyper organised in little pre-packaged bags of 25gp like rolls of pennies.

• Grunt tries to deceive him that there was a fifth member of their group and they need an additional 25gp for that absentee, but Bartemius is not convinced, it’s very hard to convince someone of something that isn’t on a physical contract in front of them. Grunt brings up the fact that he tried to fib to them about the amount they were to be paid and Bartemius apologises again, saying that he just had a little moment and just hasn’t had his coffee yet. Coffee is life and he hates Mondays.

• Coinclinkz tries to flatter him by calling him a tall, smart and generous man, then suggests that they have some paperwork that they’d love for him to sign, visibly exciting Bartemius as he loves dealing with paperwork; however he is resistant to leaving and suggests they bring it to him, because he has all his quills and equipment laid out and ready, there.

• Coinclinkz nods and feigns interest and then asks him what that is behind him, and as Bartemius turns, he attempts to charm him, failing and causing him to have moment of dizziness in which he says he must need some more coffee and pours another cup. He asks again if there is any real reason that they can’t bring this “paperwork” to him and asks if it is important.

• Grunt has an aside with Kremit, discussing the cart that they have at the moment and how he feels that it is “ownerless” at the moment and they could take it; Kremit asks if they would need to get the registration forms for it, surely it would be owned by the Crimson Carrion and Grunt laughs and says that surely they wouldn’t register a cart, its not like a real life trailer. Kremit says that they should register it and make the license plate “RBB1T”.

• Spastica says that there may have been some damage to the cart while they were using it, and that Bartemius should probably inspect it before they return it. He is incensed and says that damage to company property is very serious and immediately closes the office, getting his travel quills and measuring calibers to go and inspect the cart. While he is thoroughly looking over the cart and measuring the thickness of the wheels, complaining that it would have been nice for them to clean the cart before returning it, Coinclinkz casts Sleep on him, causing him to yawn and collapse as he started pointing out rock chips.

• They only have 1 minute to act while he is under the effects of the spell and quickly heave him into the cart, gag and cover him up with hessian sacks and other materials found in the stable yard, before rushing for the western gate of the town.

• The gate guards aren’t very perceptive and don’t notice anything suspicious about the party, waving them through without issue.

• They proceed down the road into the forest, until they reach the transition where the trees and plants appear more magical and enchanted, then they remove him from the cart and tie him to a tree. While they are tying him to the tree they notice a glowing yellow fungus begin rapidly growing on the trunk, similar to what they saw when luring Alistair into the forest the day before. Spastica wisely moves back, while Grunt and the others continue chattering by Bartemius until the fungal growth bursts, erupting into a cloud of spores that envelop them.

• Kremit and Coinclinkz succeed on their con save and leap out of the spores, while Grunt’s eyes cloud over and he appears groggy and disoriented, incapable of moving on his own. Spastica pulls him out of the cloud and he seems confused as he comes back to himself, unable to remember the last hour or so, the last thing he remembers was standing in the Chalice about to talk to Bartemius.

• Spastica explains the last hour to him but he is quite confused and doesn’t believe them, saying that he can’t believe they abducted this man and brought him into the forest to murder him!

• While this altercation is happening, they notice that a path is beginning to appear into the trees as shrubs and foliage moves out of the way on its own. They follow the path to Ted’s clearing.

• Grunt confirms that they have successfully done his bidding and Ted is very gracious that the realm is safe once again, the balance of nature is maintained and he offers they a woven reed basket of “shiny rocks” that the grippli brought to him as an offering if they were successful. In the basket is a mix of glowing tree resin, actual shiny rocks and a few uncut gemstones that they haven’t really distinguished between as they have no concept of material wealth.

• They collect this and Ted bids them safe journey, before Grunt interrupts and says that he has one last thing that he wishes to discuss with him, bringing up the magical water of the forest. He tells Ted that his current situation isn’t sustainable and that he can’t just keep wiping everyone’s memories, he should be trying to integrate into society and that they can help with that.

• Ted is confused by this and says that generally he wants to avoid society and ideally anyone knowing of this enchanted place, so no-one will try and exploit it, but he will honour their original verbal agreement of several barrels of water a month. Grunt says that was the old deal and he wants to renegotiate, saying that him having more knowledge of the outside world and external forces coming to the region would help him, he could become a force in his own right and better defend the place. Grunt suggests he send a member of the grippli with them to be Grunt’s squire and that this would help him learn more about the outside world.

• Ted listens to this exhaustive ramble of Grunt obviously fishing to effectively have a pet grippli, and says that he is sorry that the spores have affected his mind in this way, he clearly has forgotten that they have had a similar conversation before and the answer was no; Ted won’t risk the innocent denizens of his forest and have them be exploited by outsiders, he respects the balance of nature and protects his “children”.

• Grunt tirelessly continues to argue, not getting anywhere. Ted says that he has also had some thoughts about this arrangement and has come up with a plan to direct the water away from the forest via a magical root system to a point of their choosing, all they have to do is take this magical seed and plant it where they want the water directed. This way, their water bottling enterprise will not be directly associated with the forest and there won’t be people carting things back and forth, drawing attention to it. He also says that he would be able to communicate with them via the tree if required and they could tell him of any of these “external forces” that Grunt has been going on about.

• Coinlinkz goes up and has an elaborate secret handshake with Teds remaining half human, half tree arm, whose branches form the word “blood” at the end.

• Grunt says that he’d just like to have a frog man to follow him around and Ted points out that he already had Kremit, who is much more powerful than the Grippli and he can’t improve upon perfection.

• Coinclinkz takes the magical seed from Ted, Grunt eventually concedes and they say their farewells. They go over the basket of shiny rocks and appraise the gemstones in there, thinking the two stones may be worth about 40gp total, but the other stuff is more exotic and they would probably have to find a use or buyer for it.

• Coinclinkz is smoking his pipe and one of Ted’s branches comes down, revealing some dry buds and leaves on the end of it that he shakes off into their hands to refill their pipe bowls with.

• Kremit wants to go back to the grippli’s village “Rootbound Chorus” one last time before they leave, and they follow the stream down from Ted’s clearing towards them. Arriving, they are met with cheers and a lot of enthusiasm from the simple frogs, they are roasting a heron on a spit over a fire and invite the part to join them for a celebratory feast. The scene is similar to the ewok village at the end of Star Wars, a raucous celebration with a lot of pan flutes etc, overseen by Elder Thrum-of-Reeds.

• Kremit has a chat with the elder and explains the situation has been resolved, the forest is safe and he has nothing to worry about anymore and he encourages them to not “sell their children”. Elder Thrum thanks him and confirms that they wouldn’t sell their children, they have no concept of material wealth. Coinclinkz makes an inappropriate comment about genitalia and the Elder says that grippli actually have a cloaca, causing Kremit to cringe.

• Kremit asks Elder Thrum if there is a shared origin between their peoples and the Elder confirms that they are sort of cousins, they diverged from the frogfolk many years ago. The frogfolk seemed to lose their way, they developed technology and left the forests, becoming more aggressive and making war on other races, before eventually succumbing to their Goobermensch civil war, it’s very sad.

• Kremit asks him if he knows anything about “frog relics” and the Elder is confused, not really sure what he is referring to and asks if he means “The Ark of the Croakenant” ? Don’t open it, terrible things would happen.

• Coinclinkz takes a moment to talk to his cat, Cheetos, asking it if there is anything more they should be investigating in the forest, it’s one violet eye briefly glows as it makes eye contact with him and he gets a sense in his mind of something subtly pulling him far to the west.   

• They remain in the village for 2 hours, enjoying the festivities and then return to the road, following it further east until they find their cart again and notice that Bartemius isn’t tied to the tree anymore, there are only loose bindings on the ground there.

• They make their way back towards the town and encounter a small figure trudging along the side of the road ahead, walking with a strange, dazed gait; they recognise that this is Bartemius and try to call out to him by name, but there is no reaction.

• Grunt approaches him and tries to talk to him, addressing him as “Little man” again, causing Bartemius to turn and look up at him in confusion, saying good day and asking him if he can help him, he doesn’t know where he is. He looks around at them, peering from face to face blankly and then asks them if they know who he is. Kremit tells him that he is their employee and Coinclinkz pipes up, saying that he is late for work and they came to find him.

• Bartemius asks him what he does for work and Grunt tells him paperwork, which seems to rouse something in him as he mulls over the word ‘paperwork’, suggesting that he thinks he likes that. Grunt tells him that he’s already collected his annual wages and he needs to get on with his work now, successfully persuading him and eliciting an excited “yes sir!” Followed by him doing the Rimmer salute.

• Grunt tells him that Bartemius’ name is “Greg” and continues to gaslight him into believing his new identity in his addled state. Greg says it’s coming back to him now, he remembers going to school and studying accountancy and Coinclinkz hurriedly tells him that that is enough, he doesn’t need to remember anything else, they will remember things for him.

• Coinclinkz says that they will have to do their business taxes next month and asks “Greg” if he can do them for them, which he enthusiastically agrees to, saying he is very good with business tax. He explains that he can move numbers around, increase their deductions and expenses and make it appear like they made far less profit than they actually did, minimising franchise fees. Grunt is extremely keen hearing this, immediately looks at Spastica and jokingly tells her that she’s fired, they don’t need her anymore, or at least she’s demoted.

• They head back into town, passing through the guard checkpoint at the gate with the guards calling out “alright Bartemius” nodding to him, causing “Greg” to confusedly look at the others and ask why they were calling him that; they tell him that “Bartemius is his nickname” and Greg says that that is strange, they must have poor literacy in his region and they should make an effort to lift literacy.

• They take Greg back to their headquarters to be met by Roz asking “what’s this piece of shit doing here ?”, then belittling and making fun of Grunt before he mumbles something, to which she jabs him on the chest with a clawed finger and says “Don’t tell me how to do my job”. “Corporate’s just waiting for you to fuck up”.

• Grunt asks her what she is going to do after work and she tells him that she is going to go home and go to sleep, not that it’s any of his business what she does outside of work.

• They leave Greg with her to be inducted, filling out an employee starter pack and Roz gives him a rare smile, saying that it’s nice to meet someone that actually fills out the paperwork correctly.

• The party heads back to The Chalice and they start rifling around in Greg’s office, the innkeeper looks concerned about what they are doing initially, but Grunt explains to her that this is just corporate business and they are conducting a hostile takeover. She shrugs in the end and says that she doesn’t really care, the room was paid up for another 3 weeks and she was keen for an opportunity to raise the rent and get a new tenant in there.

• The party takes all of his fancy quills, seals and sealing wax, pouches of meticulously organised coins, around 3000 copper and 50gp worth. It doesn’t seem like any reports had gone out to head office yet, he was waiting for information to come back from the logging camp. They find the rego paperwork for the cart and keep that; on the wall there is a certificate with a seal on it for the official formation of their franchise that Grunt throws in the fire. He also finds their official stationary with a letterhead etc and destroys all of that as well.

• Grunt is amazed that this cart was registered and there is a bit of banter about how this must have been the first cart ever registered in this region, with the VIN number being 00000000001. Greg is very thorough and methodical, he would have approached the local bailiff and thoroughly confused him with registration paperwork that he’d never seen before.

• Spastica goes to a jewellers to get the shiny rocks evaluated and identifies that the 2 gems are indeed worth 40gp, but they can’t really make heads or tails of the other materials in the basket.

• Grunt thinks about taking the rest of the shiny rocks to a glass blower to see if they can do anything with it, but he’s torn between that and making a zen garden at their headquarters with glowing gravel. Spastica is thinking about taking a sample of the water to an alchemist for testing. Grunt decides to try and use the blank requisition forms that they found at the logging camp to get some glass vials.

• Kremit takes the magical seed back to their headquarters and plants it behind their building on their land, mystified as it starts to germinate and grow before his eyes as soon as it’s planted.

• Grunt heads over to the main drag to visit a game store to investigate his Happy Animal Friends cards, discovering 3 stores, “Games”, “OK Games” and “Slightly Above Average Games”. There are 3 ethnic men standing outside their respective stores, all bickering and trying to encourage passers by into their store. Ali, from Slightly Above Average Games draws Grunt’s eye and entices him in with his promise that “Ali can get you anything you need, express!”.

• Entering Slightly Above Average Games, he finds that Ali Baba sells a wide assortment of mostly novelty goods, minor magical items and trinkets as well as popular culture merchandise. Grunt asks if he’s interested in buying things, shows Ali his HAF cards, but Ali says that he isn’t really interested, he might have some old stock laying around to sell, but he’s not buying, these are more or less a dead, old franchise that is out of print and favour.

• Grunt tries to show him what cards he has anyway, first presenting his “pig” card to which Ali says everyone has a pig card, its so common, the Grunt presents his “shiny owl bear”, which Ali tells him is a very poor fake that appears to have been made by a child; it might even be made of chocolate. He creates a minor illusion above his hand of a slowly rotating card that he tells Grunt is what a real shiny owl bear card looks like. He offers Grunt a copper piece for his forgery, saying thats probably more than it’s worth. He looks at the rest of his cards and offers him 10 gold for everything he has, mentioning that he likes his shiny pitbull card, it could be summoned with the right accessory.

• He tells Grunt that back during the card series original run, you could get a very rare and expensive accessory called a “Battle Bracer” that would allow you to summon the monsters on shiny cards. While those are very hard to find these days, he could acquire a “Combat Cuff” through his contacts instead, for 100th the price of a Battle Bracer, a mere 30gp, that is basically the same thing, Ali could get it, express.

• Grunt isn’t completely sold and says he will try his other options at the other stores before committing to anything, asking for the name of the next salesman at OK Games, Ali tells him that the man’s name is Bob. Grunt goes into OK Games and talks to the very angry Lebanese man called Bob, surveying his very meagre stock of primitive wooden dice in primary colours, dice mats and a big spit of rotating meat by a fire. It seems like its half takeaway and half dice shop, there are free rules for a game called “humans and offices” there that Bob is trying to sell for money, dodgily. He offers Grunt 2 kebabs for his cards, says he doesn’t really know anything about card games, he mostly just likes the social interaction with customers. Grunt asks if he has any “singles” and Bob doesn’t know what he’s talking about, offers him a single slice of kebab meat instead.

• Grunt says his place really is “ok” but says he would like to go to the next business and try there instead, Bob tells him the name of the owner is “Giorgio Anakopalopitus” of the store “Games”. Grunt enters, looks around, realises that this appears to be just a takeaway and asks him where the games are. Giorgio says that the game you play is what happens to you after you eat one of his souvlakis; he tells him that the Trojan has 17 spices on it and asks him if he’d like one.

• Grunt is disappointed and heads back to headquarters, meeting up with the rest of the party to have yet another meeting. As he arrives he notices that the tree in the yard has already grown into a small sapling about a meter tall. Inside, he finds Roz and Greg working together, the office is cleaner and tidier than it was before, Greg is pointing over her shoulder and trying to show her how to use different coloured quills and colour code things etc. He starts the “afternoon huddle” and asks the party what ideas they have for a business strategy, Kremit tells him about his idea for a talkshow called a “Frogcast”, like a regular talkshow, except he does it. This idea is rejected as nonsensical and Kremit follows up with his next idea, “foldable carts”, a portable cart that you can fold up and take with you. He has no idea how this would work, but its an interesting idea; Grunt asks him quizzically if he wants to get into retail and there is an inscrutable back and forth between them as they confuse each other.

• Grunt moves on from Kremit and asks Coinclinkz if he has any information on their rivals, as the head of corporate espionage, Coinclinkz says that Greg has tidied things up so they can now start doing more productive work. He says that they should put up posters asking for information about dungeons, so they can go find them, complete them and then refurb them, charging people an entry fee. Grunt is mildly interested in this idea and says there is the skeleton of something there.

• He gets an update from Spastica next who tells him that they have quite a bit of money at the moment, around 200 gold, Grunt decides to try using the VEC blank requisition forms, he sends Coinclinkz down the post office to deposit the forms and have them sent down to the docks to be filled.

• Finding Speckled Jim comes up again in conversation as a pressing priority.

• As they are continuing to have their fourth meeting of the day, they hear a bit of disturbance out in the office as someone comes in and is talking to Roz, who shortly appears at the door to the meeting room, to tell Grunt that she has a job for him. She says that he’ll hopefully have a chance to make some money and maybe his franchise won’t fold this month, then chuckles at him. She tells them that there is some sort of disturbance way out west in the mines that has caused them to halt production, they are requesting help from anyone that will send aid; Grunt says that he’ll add it to the agenda noncommittally and Roz leaves, passive aggressively not closing the door when she leaves.

• Grunt questions Spastica, as the resident ranger, if she knows where a pigeon might have gone, not bothering to ask the literal bird-man (coinclinkz) beside him about bird behaviour. Greg pops his head in, hearing them talking about locations in the area where the bird might be, and provides them with a crude map of the area, saying it might come in handy. Hearing the word about the disturbance out west, Coinclinkz once again has the sense of something in the back his mind nudging him to the west.

• Spastica talks about bird behaviour and where they might want to go and nest in various forested biomes etc and Kremit pipes up that they can’t just check every tree in the region… Grunt says that he’s never seen a pigeon in the forest, he’s only seen them in the city, where he normally is.

• Coinclinkz briefly goes outside and tries to commune with his cat to see if he can glean any more information about their current situation from his patron but is not successful, the cat simply raises a paw up and brushes at his face.

• Kremit goes outside and joins him, smoking their respective pipes while Grunt goes into the city to try and search for Speckled Jim, trying to pick up and inspect every pigeon he comes across.

• They meet back up later in the day and Grunt uses his Coin of Decisionary, asking it if they should continue to hunt for Speckled Jim, he flips it and on the face it says “This will be a lucrative decision”. He calls a vote on what they should do next after considering the “key take aways from this meeting”, they resolve to follow up on the missive from Roz, directing them to the Broken Peaks copper mine to assist with getting production running again, even though Grunt doesn’t value copper and thinks its a silly metal.

• They head out of town on a multi day journey, travelling through the village of Sychar on their way, Coinclinkz stops to talk to a farmer working on repairing a stone fence by the side of the road, near a few other labourers slopping around in the mud. He asks them if they know anything about any caves or dungeons in the area and the farmer, Gerald, gives them an incomprehensible reply in a very thick rural farmer’s dialect, clapping on the shoulder at the end and smiling “alright ?”. Coinclinkz thanks them and they return to their work on the wall, he returns to the group and bluffs what he learned from the farmer, marking a random spot on the map at the end of a road, proclaiming there was something of interest there.

• They camp for the evening, the next day continuing their journey, travelling past the community/village where the mine workers live, then up a twisting road into the mountains to the mine proper. They encounter a small group of workers walking down the track towards them with pickaxes and basic tools, looking dejected and try to talk to them, asking them why they are walking away from the mines during the day when they should be working.

• The miner tells him that something happened and they lost contact with the deep exploratory miners, a young worker called Harvey was sent down to check on them but was killed on the way back to the surface. The mine was hastily sealed after the body was discovered, it was deemed too dangerous, by the foreman, to continue work. He doesn’t really know much more than that, they’ve been sent home for the time being and they hope the mines re open soon, otherwise they will start to struggle to make ends meet. The miners walk off towards home, grumbling and commiserating about poor Harvey.

• Kremit makes a joke about “Harvey Minestein”

• The party continues to the mine proper, it has a few outbuildings, they see that the entrance to the mine has been rudimentarily sealed with boards, debris and boulders, with 2 simple guards with leather jerkins and pitchforks posted outside it. Kremit asks one of the guards about the accident, saying that he wants to see Harvey’s body. They point him to a storage shed where a medic is looking at the body with the foreman at the moment.

• They find the body laid out on top of a large crate in the storage shed with a dwarven foreman looking on as an older human man with a basic medical kit makes an incision in the body, checking the entrails and goes “he’s definitely dead, I don’t know what to tell you.” “I’m used to dealing with broken arms and bruises, I think this man just needs a priest, there isn’t much I can do for him.”

• Kremit and Spastica inspect the body with their combined survival and medical skills, locating a pair of puncture wounds on the man’s neck, surrounded by unusual black veins and they are sure that that is what has killed him. Grunt talks to Brint Slagbarrow, the foreman, telling him that he’s here to help and immediately asking what is the reward. The foreman is taken aback and asks them if they are the Baron’s men, or if the baron sent them, Grunt says that they are not, and Brint goes on to tell them that the baron has given them basically carte blanche to get the mine back up and running as soon as possible. Brint suggests that they could give them maybe 10% of their output, Grunt asks for 20% and suggests that they could get the mine running more efficiently than before, approximately 110% of its usual output. Brint offers him 20% of the extra 10% that they will produce with Grunt’s ideas and Grunt tries to wrangle him back the other way towards a higher reward.

• Brint says they can worry about the reward after the job is done, tells them about the situation, Harvey was killed by something in the mines after they lost touch with the four dwarven specialist miners that were exploring in the deepest regions. Says that they are miners, not warriors and he cares for his men, they are all part of a tight knit community and he doesn’t want to endanger them recklessly. He suggests that if the party can safely return their missing people, there would be an additional reward in it for them, he also offers basic supplies like healing remedies, torches and pickaxes up front.

• Grunt continues to try and finagle a higher reward out of him, but Brint is resolute, saying they’ve had trouble with city folk in the past and he doesn’t deal in fantasy future scenarios of what might happen, he deals in factual reality in the present. Reward after results.

• Grunt asks Coinclinkz if he’s claustrophobic and if he can tolerate being underground as a weird bird man and he says that he should be alright, he might be part cave turkey somewhere in his ancestry. The party distributes the four healing potions they have been given, they are blue raspberry flavoured.

• The guards tear down part of the temporary barricade and usher them inside, hastily rebuilding it behind them, sealing them inside the mine. The guard cheerily asks them for their safeword to know when they are returning and suggests light-heartedly “oh no, it’s killing us, it’s killing us!”

• They light up some flaming torches and head into the mine, with only Kremit having dark vision and the others being mostly blind; the air is still and smells musty, dead air, slightly sulphurous like there may have been some blasting in the past.

• They note there is a drag path on the ground from where the body was likely extracted from deeper in the mine and they follow it down another level. They find where the corpse seems to have been found, a large rusty outline on the ground, preceeded by some footsteps leading up to it that appear to be a miner’s boots, with a lot of other strange marks on the ground. Spastica and Kremit use their combined survival skills to determine that something with small, pointed feet has been tramping around in this area, something with more legs than a human.

• Grunt uses a paladin ability to sense poisons and poisonous creatures, he determines from some of the traces of venom on the ground where the corpse was, that this appears to be from a giant wolf spider and keeps this information to himself to not frighten the others.

• This region of the mine seems like its been frequently and recently worked, its very well shored up, with a lot of wooden beams and well cut passages, large mined out areas where veins have been exhausted etc.

• They follow the spider footsteps deeper into the mine, seeing that they wrap around up onto the ceiling of the tunnels and disappear when they get to rocky surfaces.

• Grunt decides to consult Spastica on her beast knowledge and what she’d know about giant wolf spiders, asking for a friend… She tells him that they are significantly sized spiders, around the size of a large dog and are not the most dangerous species of arachnids but still nasty.

• They cautiously proceed into the mine, with Grunt using his literal “Spidey sense” to act as an early warning system for spider ambushes for the next 10 mins of travel. Coinclinkz doesn’t have dark vision but is using his familiar abilities to see through the eyes of his cat, Cheetos, who does have dark vision.

• As they go deeper into the mine, there are more frequent untouched veins of copper in the walls, as well as gemstones that commonly appear near copper, the tunnels get gradually smaller, now only 8 feet in diameter, as they get to the more exploratory shafts that have been cut by the dwarves in the deepest regions. Kremit takes the lead, with his military scout experience and dark vision, seeing that up ahead there is a carpet of thickening web on the surfaces of the tunnel and calls for the party to halt.

• Where the web begins to appear is where the tunnel narrows to a choke point only a few feet wide, where miners have gone in-between  some harder strata of stone, and they struggle to see what lies ahead. Grunt questions if the web is sticky and considers touching it, Spastica warns him not to, explaining that spiders could feel the vibration of prey and come to investigate, Coinclinkz considers using burning hands to clear a big swath of it, but Kremit wisely uses a torch to clear a small area of it experimentally.

• Kremit is very apprehensive about going through into the next section of tunnel but Grunt claps him on the shoulder and sagely says that “sometimes you can be clever, but other times you just fucking Leeroy Jenkins the shit and fight the thing”. Grunt brandishes his torch ahead of him and confidently moves forward through the opening, methodically clearing the web from the floor and walls.

• In the tunnel ahead there seem to be a series of harder boulders or veins of stone that form protrusions coming out of the wall, obscuring the path ahead as it winds around them. Moving around the nearest one, Kremit sees a giant wolf spider perched on the far side of it and screams, dextrously leaping away.

• Kremit asks the others if spiders have foreskins.

• Battle starts and there is a brief exchange with this spider with kermit hurling ineffectual curse words, Spastica missing bow shots, and Grunt hammering it into goo with a single swing of his magic maul. As the first spider dies, another appears, along with a strange humanoid with clawed limbs, spider fangs and many eyes on its head.

• Coinclinkz engages the humanoid from range, firing Eldritch Blasts at it, Grunt tangles with it in a brutal melee and the wolf spider rushes to attack Kremit, lunging off the wall and sinking its fangs into his neck. Kremit resists the venom and shoves it off, shearing 2 of its legs off with his sword, Spastica scores a good hit on the humanoid with her bow, Grunt shields himself with his faith, Coinclinkz scores another minor hit on the humanoid.

• The humanoid spider sinks its fangs into Grunts neck successfully on the second attempt, significantly injuring him as he is poisoned. The wolf spider tries to re-orient itself and attack Kremit, missing, Kremit exploits the opening and drives his sword into his abdomen, near shearing it in half, then kicking its corpse away.

• He tries to cast dissonant whispers on the humanoid, but it has little effect. Coinclinkz misses with an Eldritch Blast and his shot goes wild, illuminating the length of the tunnel and cutting through some web. Grunt focuses on defence and dodging as Kremit moves up to flank the Ettercap, it turns and attacks Kremit instead, sinking its fangs into his neck and grievously injuring him, before following up with its claws, barely missing what would have been a fatal hit. Kremit reflexively jumps away to safety, behind Grunt, then follows up with another cast of Dissonant Whispers, chipping a little more damage off of the Ettercap.

• Spastica scores a powerful hit on the monster with her bow and it is barely clinging on to life, Grunt struggles to wheel his maul around in the narrow tunnel and misses it, Coinclinkz scores a direct hit on it’s head with his Eldrith Blast, a lance of red energy bores into it’s forehead, pressurising its internals and causing all of its eyes to explode outwards as it dies. He then bends his bird man head over like a seagull and lets out a triumphant screech.

• Spastica collects some of the monster’s venom to attempt to brew a potion later. Grunt removes the head of the ettercap, wanting to offer it to the mine foreman as proof that they have cleared the threat from the mine and he continues burning away spiderwebs.

• They move through this region where there was heavy web and come to the exit from their current tunnel that opens out into a large chamber with a huge fissure through half the floor and up into the wall, looks like someone has been blasting and uncovered this. The party can see that there are webs and strands of silk coming up over the rim of this fissure, and scattered around the perimeter of the chamber are a number of webbed objects of varying sizes. On one wall there appears to be a thick mat of web that may be obscuring an opening, but they aren’t sure what is behind it.

• Kremit wants to have a rest and heal himself, he lays down on the ground, but looking up can see a significant amount of webs covering the ceiling of the cavern and alerts the party, gets the sense that this wouldn’t be a good spot to rest. Coinclinkz considers casting Burning Hands up at the ceiling, Grunt thinks about collapsing the tunnel preceding this chamber and Kremit wants to retreat up the tunnel to rest and then return.

• They agree to leave and rest, as they are exiting, Spastica has a look around and notices that she can hear faint, muffled noises coming from the covered opening on the wall and the surface appears to be moving slightly; it sounds like muffled cries for help.

• Grunt is still considering collapsing the tunnel and leaving whoever may be there to their fate, but Spastica lectures him that he is always talking about preserving life and potential customers and that not returning the miners would affect their reward.

• Grunt relents and admits she is right and tells the rest of the group to go and bust them out, if it is the miners. Kremit hastily casts a healing spell on himself and drinks a potion. They become concerned about the forms around the perimeter of the chamber and worry that these may be full of baby spiders. Grunt fails his perception check and doesn’t believe that these are moving and are unlikely to contain spiderlings.

• The party moves around to the other side of the fissure and Coinclinkz pulls his dagger, working with Kremit and Grunt to cut away the covering on this opening, peeling away a heavy sheet of matted web. Inside they can see a trio of enwebbed, dwarven miners that appear to be alive and well, just bound. They become more animated and excited seeing the torchlight from the party, the party frees them and the dwarves thank them profusely, saying that a big spider caught them and sealed them in this alcove, they think maybe this is the spider’s pantry and she’s saving them. 

• The dwarves ask them if they killed the big spider and the party is confused and frightened as its beginning to dawn on them that they are in great danger; they ask how big the spider is and the dwarves say “about the size of 8 horses” eliciting a nervous laugh from Coinclinkz. Kremit asks the party how fast they can run.

• Grunt calls for quiet and says they should try and sneak out of the chamber but Coinclinkz is becoming animated and talking about killing the spider, causing the dwarves to cheer “ROCK AND STONE!” And “FOR CARL!” As they tell the party they can help kill this big beast by bringing the ceiling down on it.

• Coinclinkz peers out into the darkness with his torch raised and can just see the glint off of something shiny, on the periphery of the light, descending from the ceiling in the middle of the chamber. “Ah fuck, rock and stone, brothers...”

• The dwarves see that the party doesn’t have a lot of equipment, start passing out specialty mining supplies like alchemist’s fire and tell them that subterranean spiders are often vulnerable to fire damage. They say that while they aren’t warriors, they are expert miners and if the party can keep the spider busy, near the centre of the chamber, they can bring down the ceiling covered in stalactites down on it in short order, sealing the crevasse.

• Kremit moves first, playing a brief melody to inspire Coinclinkz, then lobbing a flask of alchemist’s fire out into the centre of the chamber, at the colossal spider they can now see has reached the ground, missing, creating a small pool of fire on the floor.

• Coinclinkz moves forwards and casts Burning Hands on the spider for massive damage, setting its hairs alight as they continue to burn off, creating an 8 legged fireball.

• Grunt charges up and hits the spider with his maul, smiting it for huge damage and it now appears quite injured.

• One of the eggsacs ruptures as the spider takes a lair action, causing a swarm of watermelon sized spiders to emerge.

• Spastica throws a jar of alchemists fire at the spider, covering it in burning oil, extending the burn duration on her and further injuring her.

• The dwarves are beginning to climb the wall, hammering small round platforms into it and helping each other rapidly scale its surface towards the ceiling.

• Grunt hit her again with his maul and she is looking quite battered, she retreats to the side of the chamber and drives her fangs into one of the webbed bundles on the floor, sucking it dry and the party can see the victim inside kicking a bit, still alive. Her wounds seem to be visibly healing as she does this, then takes some additional damage as she is still on fire.

• The spiderlings rush across the chamber and swarm onto grunt, biting him for significant damage. Kremit inspects one of the webbed forms that he is standing next to, able to see with his torch over it that it appears to be a miner that may be paralysed or near death. Kremit then runs over to Grunt, trying to slash some of the spiderlings off of him with his sword, masterfully killing 7 out of 8 of the swarm, leaving a single watermelon sized spider wrapped around Grunt’s head, continuing to try to bite him.

• Coinclinkz casts Scorching Ray on the colossal mother spider, doing enormous amounts of damage, he has Cheetos on his shoulder and his pipe in his mouth as he fires the rays out of his finger-guns. Two curling masses of fire wind out from him and hammer into the spider from opposite sides, causing her to explode like the Death Star as she dies. Above them, they can hear rapturous cheering of “ROCK AND STONE!” And “FOR CARL!” As the dwarves see the spider die.

• Grunt splats he remaining spiderling against his face, unfazed and then walks over to the remaining 2 webbed miners and cuts them loose, revealing men on the edge of death, covered in black veins. Grunt channels his divinity and gives everyone below half health a surge of healing, perking them up dramatically.

• The dwarves have them clear the danger zone around the crevasse and bring the ceiling down with a bunch of mining charges, a big stalactite slams down and plugs the fissure along with a heap of rubble.

• After this happens and the dust settles, Cheetos leaps off of Coinclinkz shoulder and runs over to the wall, where the dwarves blasted, and begins chirping and jumping, scrabbling against it, looking up. Coinclinkz follows where she is looking and sees that some sort of worked stone doorway flanked by scrollwork pillars, that was previously encased in rock high on the wall, has been revealed. 

• The dwarves zipline down from the ceiling, rush to the third webbed body that was drank by the colossal spider and find their fourth comrade, Carl, now drained and deceased.

• Cheetos climbs up the wall to the revealed doorway, Coinclinkz’ eyes roll back in his head as he switches to seeing through her senses to inspect the door, and he sees there is a barricade over it covered in arcane script. While he doesn’t initially recognise the language, it swims before his eyes and resolves into a language he can comprehend. It says “Let it be known that this place has been sealed by The Stars of David, on the holy mandate of the divine one, let none enter this pagan temple.” He can sense that this is the place he was being drawn to over the last few days.

[End of session]